


Love Alone

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Body Horror, Demonic Possession, F/F, F/M, Horror, Inception Reverse Big Bang Challenge, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 08:28:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13655256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: Arthur thinks he and Ariadne are enough to delve into the mind of a traumatized woman to find out what happened to her. He's very, very wrong.





	Love Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [2017 Inception Reversebang,](http://i-reversebang.livejournal.com/) in response to [picture 115](https://imgur.com/buxlSG7) by [joellen.](http://beautifulweddin.livejournal.com)

"I need you to help me," Genevieve Cartwell said, leaning forward in her seat as she spoke with Arthur. She had dusky skin, tightly curled hair and dark brown eyes, which were wide and plaintive. "No one will look into what really happened, and I need to know."

He was immaculately dressed, hair slicked back and files in front of him on the desk as if they were discussing investments and he was a stock broker. "I'm not sure why you think that I can help you," he hedged.

"I was told that you know an elite team of people capable of discovering secrets. It's not exactly legal, so I wasn't given any details about _how_ your team collects them." Genevieve paused and flashed him an uneasy smile. "Private investigators sent me away after a day or so, so I really don't know where else to turn."

"Oh? Why?"

"I never got an explanation. They gave me my money back and refused to take any of my calls."

Those were very obvious red flags, but these were the kind of flags that drove Arthur's interest.

"I can't make you any promises," he cautioned her. "So don't get your hopes up. Let me look into it, find out why they refused to work with you. If there's a legitimate reason, I will tell you, at least to put your mind at ease," Arthur offered magnanimously. "I don't know if I can actually help you discover this big secret that you're looking for, but I can look into why they refused to get back to you."

She visibly relaxed. "Thank you."

"I may not be able to find anything."

"But at least you'll try. It's more than I've gotten so far."

"I'll see what I can do."

***

Gretchen DeMaio was Genevieve's twin, a full six minutes younger and nearly a full pound heavier at birth. Genevieve had been born first, chosen to go to college first, got married first. Gretchen seemed to be destined for a life full of seconds, but she disappeared for three days from her community college. No one knew where she had gone, and she was found wandering in the forested area of the park near the school. Her clothes were torn and dirty, her limbs were covered in scratches and dirt, and four of her fingernails were broken as if she had clawed her way out of something. Leaves and dirt were matted in her hair, and she had the thousand yard stare that spoke of untold horrors she had endured over the three days she had been missing. She was pliant and docile during the physical examination, which found symbols carved into her skin, no evidence of rape, but what looked like evidence of recent childbirth.

She said nothing, and there was no evidence of drugs in her system. Doctors said she was catatonic from her trauma, and it was impossible for her to continue classes at school. Their parents tried to take care of her the best that they could. It seemed to work well for the first week, but then she snapped.

No one could figure out what was the trigger for it. Gretchen was catatonic and seated near the window in the living room, then suddenly she screamed loud enough to shatter the light bulb overhead. By the time her mother ran in from the kitchen, all of ten feet away, the couch was in ruins and the healed carvings on her skin had all opened and seeped blood. When her mother approached to help calm her, she turned on her and started to punch her in the head. The screams drew the neighbors, who had to peel Gretchen off of her mother. Gretchen snapped and gnashed her teeth, trying to bite, snarling guttural words no one could understand or reply to.

Melissa DeMaio had a concussion and two black eyes as a result of the attack. She was also deathly afraid of Gretchen, who had lapsed back into catatonia.

Neurologists found no abnormalities, and psychiatrists could only theorize that Gretchen saw someone that looked like her kidnapper and reacted badly. With no actual input from Gretchen, they could only say she was catatonic because of her trauma, that it had triggered some kind of psychotic break from reality. She was trapped in the awful world of those three days, repeatedly enduring whatever had been done to her.

Tearfully, the DeMaio family signed Gretchen over to a facility to care for her that would be able to handle the outbursts of violence if and when they came. Melissa still had severe sequelae of the concussion, but felt like a failure.

Genevieve took the entire episode badly, and desperately wanted to know what happened to her sister in those three days she had been missing. It started with going over the police records, but most were uncomfortable with her line of inquiry. Then came the private investigators, who one by one refused to help her. "Is it a cult? Is that what it is?" Genevieve had demanded. But no one had answered her, and left her with more questions.

The information Genevieve did have was very straightforward and easy to look through. Arthur confirmed everything for himself, just to be sure it wasn't a set up of some kind.

"Paranoid?" Ariadne teased when she found out about it, paging through his moleskine as she sat beside him. She liked watching him work, the way he was so hyperfocused and competent. It wasn't a traditional thing to really be enamored with, but she had a competency kink and Arthur seriously pinged all those buttons.

"Call it being thorough."

She grinned at him and leaned her head on her hand, elbow propped up on the desk. "So you'll take the job, then?"

"I suppose I feel sorry for her," Arthur admitted.

Ariadne playfully feigned shock. "The great Arthur with _feelings?_ it's a sign of the apocalypse!" she joked.

Arthur rolled his eyes at her. "That's not funny."

"Of course it is."

After the Fischer job, it had taken a full seven months before they had gone on their first date. Arthur said it was because he wanted to be certain that they were safe. Ariadne joked that he simply didn't have the guts. She had to chase him down in the real world to tell him that his dream kiss hadn't been enough, and was only a tease.

Their dates were scattered across the globe and under nearly a dozen aliases, just to satisfy Arthur's sense of safety and precaution. "This is a dangerous job, and I'm still not sure if you should even be in it."

"So teach me what else I need to know," she had challenged him. "I'm a fast learner."

"I remember," he had said fondly.

"So what does your research say?" Ariadne asked Arthur now, tapping the notebook. It's not a straightforward job."

"We should be able to get the time we need for it. She's institutionalized, after all."

"But the approach is what? Dive in and have her replay it all? That seems cruel."

"Any better ideas?"

Ariadne looked over the notes Arthur had taken, and the photos of Gretchen. She sighed, shaking her head. "If I didn't know better, I would have said she's possessed."

"What do you mean, know better?"

"They're not a religious family. You can tell because there's no talk of going to church after this happened, praying to God, others from their church family coming to comfort or help them out with any of this... Demonic possession seems to happen more in devout families." At Arthur's inquisitive look, she flushed slightly. "My grandmother was a staunch Catholic. Lots of guilt. So my Mom broke away from the church. My Dad wasn't really a huge believer in the Orthodox church either."

"So were raised with pretty much no religion?"

She shrugged. "My grandmother had me baptized as a baby and took me to services as a kid. But it's not like I really believe anything. You?"

"You know I was raised Jewish," Arthur said, waiting for her nod to continue. "But we didn't really do much. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, of course. And Hanukah when I was a kid."

"So lack of formative religion turned us to this life of crime?" Ariadne teased.

Arthur snorted. "Hardly. But demonic possession isn't exactly something that I would've thought of as an explanation."

"I don't think most people would," Ariadne nodded. "But I remember stories my grandmother told me once, about a girl in her hometown. There are six classic signs of demonic possession, and this girl had them all, but no one believed my grandmother."

"She talked about it?"

"To anyone that would listen," she said, nodding again. "So I remember the signs pretty well, even though I didn't do catechism or anything like that. The biggest sign is an aversion to all things sacred. Not just 'I don't like it' or feeling like it doesn't matter. I mean, the stereotypical fear of crosses," she said, holding her pointer fingers in front of her in the warding sign of the cross, "being near a priest or church, holy water, crucifixes, symbols, whatever. That causes something like an allergic reaction. Thd girl would get violently ill and vomit bright orange fluid – my grandmother was very specific on that point – and sometimes foamed at the mouth or howled as if she was in pain."

"Definitely dramatic enough to remember," Arthur murmured.

"Yup. Another sign is speaking in tongues. Usually other languages the victim never learned or shouldn't be able to know. There's the eye sign, which I was never sure if it was just rolling them or if they looked just plain weird. Another sign is extreme strength and violence, like picking things up and tossing them across the room as if it didn't weigh anything."

"What did that girl do?"

"Ripped up a park bench bolted to the cement and threw it to the other side of a park at someone running away from her," Ariadne replied promptly.

Arthur blinked. "Another dramatic thing to remember."

Ariadne nodded. "I know Mom was worried that telling me this would give me nightmares, but it never did."

"Because you're tough."

"Damn straight," she laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners.

"Four signs so far."

"You're counting?" she asked, a bit surprised. But why should she have been? Arthur was all about the details, of course. Going over the signs she had said so far, counting them down on her fingers and ignoring Arthur's playful "Your eyes are rolling! You're possessed!" as she tried to remember them all. "Ah. The last two. Demons can talk about things that the victim wouldn't have known, undermining others trying to do an exorcism, including the priest. And there are odd physical contortions throughout the body, like it's being twisted up into a pretzel."

"So... I can see why you'd say that. The posturing, the way the living room was torn up, attacking her mother like that, the odd speech..." Arthur said dubiously.

"Maybe. Could be more of a demon worshipping cult molesting her," Ariadne offered.

"So we'll keep an open mind."

***

Gretchen looked exactly like Genevieve, but without that spark of personality behind her eyes. She was heavily medicated to give even the barest hint of movement; sedatives were the standard of care for catatonia, but it didn't do much for Gretchen other than keep her limbs flexible. She followed the group home's exercise routine, ate at meal times, played checkers and watched TV. Rarely, she spoke to other residents.

Staff members found her to be a very low intervention patient in their care, despite the violent outburst in her history. "We don't leave her in front of the windows or the TV if unsupervised," the house director added. "We're cautious, and maybe that's why we haven't had any incidents." He leveled them with a stern glance, an effect lessened by the fact that he looked like a stoner ready to ski in Colorado.

"We have no intention of causing any incidents," Arthur assured the director. "This is a newer technology that hopes to unlock and process traumatic memories. It's been authorized by her sister, Genevieve Caldwell."

"I know. The family has been through a lot, and it's traumatized everyone. But we still have a duty to keep Gretchen safe."

"We completely understand," Ariadne assured him with a calming smile. "It's what we all want."

With the other house residents still present, it was decided to work in Gretchen's room. She would be on her bed, and Ariadne and Arthur would be on cots usually reserved for when there was construction or repairs to be done in the house. Her room could barely fit the cots, but the director wouldn't hear of them using the floor or an armchair. He wasn't overly curious about the PASIV, at least, accepting the explanation that it was part of the new technology.

The team would be just Arthur and Ariadne for this. He knew the background information and had teased out the timeline of events as much as he could. This wasn't precisely an extraction, more like observation, so Ariadne was needed to change the surrounding son the fly if memories were triggered or spiraled out of control. Arthur still had his Glock 19 under his jacket in the dream, and Ariadne could easily dream up a Beretta or USP Compact after training with them incessantly with Arthur.

It felt different, just the two of them on a job. Usually they had to hide the fact that they were in a relationship, no jokes or longing looks. It helped that neither were terribly demonstrative, so there was no need to constantly hold hands or kiss in public. It was enough to wait until in their bedroom to peel off layers of clothing, the armor of this business, and then stroke bare skin to fever pitch. Anticipation made it better, until the slide of Arthur's fingers in her slicked sheath could almost make her come right then.

The director and staff didn't seem to guess or care that they were involved, which suited them just fine. Working relationships were common enough, after all.

"Ready?" Arthur asked, setting up the PASIV.

She grinned at him. "As always."

In went the needles, and Gretchen didn't even jerk at all. Once they were settled on their cots, Arthur pressed the button and somnacin began to flow. Ariadne closed her eyes, and wasn't sure if Gretchen jerked or made a sound as the dream began.

***

They were at the community college, the forested area extending beyond it. People milled about, chatting or going through the paths to the different buildings on campus. Ariadne was dressed in a white blouse, indigo jeans and low heeled boots. Arthur was all black: the denim jacket, shirt, jeans, socks and boots were all the same shade of black.

"If you're trying to be goth," Ariadne teased, "you are failing miserably." She grasped his hand and gave it a squeeze. "I love you anyway."

"Good thing for me," Arthur returned dryly. His mouth quirked. "I wasn't going for goth. More like serious badass."

Ariadne laughed. "in that case, you hit the mark dead on."

They wandered through the campus of Gretchen's dream, hand in hand like other couples on the quad. Ariadne couldn't help but grin a lot, enjoying the feel of being with him openly and without caution. It was a novel experience, and one that she found was more fun than she had thought it would be.

Gretchen was sitting near the art building, an easel set up facing the quad. The canvas was black, and most of the paints were incandescent and white-bright. The streaks on the canvas disturbed Ariadne, though she couldn't have said why. Arthur's jaw was tight, making her think that it disturbed him as well.

"That looks..." Ariadne began, frowning slightly.

"Is it supposed to mean something?" Arthur asked at the same time.

Grinning at each other, they continued on their way toward Gretchen, who had continued to paint in an oblivious manner. The streaks of electric blue, neon green, sunny yellow and titanium white were startling, and seemed to convey the sense that the viewer was falling down a deep hole of some kind, which was very disconcerting. "That seems really intense," Ariadne said when they were in earshot.

Though she had a brush in hand, Gretchen wasn't so engrossed that she didn't hear her. She turned, and looked very much like Genevieve in that moment. Her smile was soft, friendly and so very different from how she had seemed lying on her bed in her room. "You appreciate art, then?" she asked.

"Most of the time," Ariadne joked, smiling back.

"I'm Gretchen," she said, picking up her brush in a half wave.

"Amy," Ariadne said, sticking to the identity she was using for the job. Arthur introduced himself as Robert, following her cue.

Gretchen nodded but eyed them warily at that moment. "You believe in auras? Fate?"

"Not really," Ariadne replied. "Seems like a lot of New Age stuff to me."

"You should try going to the Alpha Sigma party tonight," she suggested. "Artsy like this, not so much with the spooky stuff like Lambda Zeta."

"You're big into the Greek life?"' Arthur asked.

"Nah. But the parties are a big deal."

"Are you going to one tonight?"

"Alpha Sigma, maybe. Brianna's trying to convince me to go to Lambda Zeta, though."

"We'll maybe we'll see you there," Ariadne said with a friendly smile.

Gretchen's answering smile was a touch off. "Yeah. Sure. See you there."

She wasn't at either party that night, and none of the projections were particularly helpful in finding her.

"Think she knows something is wrong?" Arthur asked Ariadne, frowning. "There wasn't anything in the interviews that had said she had disappeared from a frat party."

"We can try again tomorrow," Ariadne offered, heading toward the car they were using in the dream. The two of them were dressed in the same outfits they had originally dreamed up, but at least they weren't rumpled. "We can get in a little R and R tonight," she added with a playful leer in his direction.

Arthur laughed in full agreement, sounding more carefree than she had heard him in weeks in the real world. He stopped abruptly as he wound his arm around her. "There's a light in the woods."

Ariadne turned and saw the bopping point of light in the darkness, someone's very bright flashlight showing the way. "Sex later, then," she sighed in disappointment.

"We'll have to settle for real world sex," Arthur joked. "Job first."

They hiked through the woods, changing their clothes with a thought to something more appropriate. The light bobbed ahead, and it was clearly being held by someone. Ariadne signaled that she was going to change the physical properties of their bodies, which allowed them to soundlessly pass through the trees and head directly for the light.

"This is such crap," they heard Gretchen say as they closed in. She was whining and sounded rather exhausted. "We could've been at the party instead."

"Oh, come on," another girl said in a wheedling and overly familiar tone. "Doesn't it sound like it's worth checking out?"

"If you made me come out here for nothing," Gretchen began in a warning tone.

There was a giggling as Arthur and Ariadne approached closer, and soon they could clearly see the girl with Gretchen push her up against a large tree and kiss her. Gretchen was obviously into it, putting her arms around the girl, careful not to hit her head with the flashlight. The girl groped Gretchen, fondling her breasts and opening up the top button on her jeans. "Not for nothing," the girl moaned against Gretchen's mouth as her hand slipped inside the jeans and underwear. "Never for nothing."

It was awkward to watch the girl finger Gretchen, swallowing her cries of pleasure with kisses. Gretchen dropped the flashlight as she came, body stiffening and hips thrusting against the girl's fingers. The girl laughed as she eased Gretchen down, then licked her fingers provocatively. "Still think a dumbass party is better than being with me?"

"Fuck. Did you want me to go down on you right here?" Gretchen asked, sounding drunk. She leaned against the tree as if it was the only thing keeping her up.

"Oh, I'll wait 'till we get there," the girl laughed. "Better to be comfy for that."

"Amen," Gretchen said, watching the girl bend down to pick up the flashlight. "Is it much farther?" She laughed as the girl came in for another kiss. "I'm all wobbly now."

"Not too far. Can't keep them waiting."

"Them?" Gretchen asked, frowning.

"You'll see."

The girl led the way now, and Gretchen followed her. She stumbled here and there, her jeans loose on her hips since she never redid them. Her hand was tight in the girl's free hand, and occasionally she stumbled on purpose to kiss the girl on the neck or turn her to kiss her mouth.

A clearing up ahead soon was visible, with candles lit around a slab of marble. In the real world, a clearing like this had never been found. Ariadne shot Arthur a helpless look, because she hadn't made it and there hadn't been a shift in the reality around them.

The girl led Gretchen to the slab, which was perhaps five or six inches above the ground. It was white with gray and black veins in it, and seemed to shimmer in the candlelight. Some symbols were carved into the top, as well as along the sides.

"Oh, shit," Gretchen giggled. "You went all out to make this romantic."

Laughing, the girl started to undress Gretchen, tossing her clothes away carelessly. She undressed herself, Gretchen eagerly helping and kissing her dark brown skin as it was uncovered. She suckled a breast and stroked the girl's sides, humming happily all the while. The girl moaned, head thrown back in pleasure, and pulled Gretchen's hand between her legs. "Get me ready, love," she crooned.

Gretchen eagerly fucked her with her fingers as she sucked on a breast. It felt awkward to watch, as if the tableau was some kind of amateur girl on girl porn video that Ariadne wasn't meant to see. Arthur was watching, noting details about the girl with Gretchen, probably trying to figure out who she was in the real world.

As the girl came, her head snapped back all the way, so that the back of her head touched her spine. Her eyes were wide open, all black, and she was staring at Arthur and Ariadne. Ariadne thought her heart stopped, and she edged backward a step. The girl's mouth opened and black smoke escaped as she said "You're mine" in an unnatural and guttural voice.

"Yes," Gretchen said, letting the girl position her on the slab. The girl's head was back on straight, so Gretchen didn't seem to realize anything was wrong. "Oh, yes."

Arthur looked at Ariadne in concern. "Should we stop them?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper and certainly not going to carry into the clearing. They already knew something terrible happened in the woods. What started out as a lover's tryst went all kinds of wrong afterward, and neither were interested in watching it unfold.

Plus, the girls' head, eyes and voice all were creepy as fuck.

"I don't know if we want to," she replied, biting her lip. "It might set projections on us."

"Though we probably got enough info for Genevieve. We don't even have to stay and watch what happens," he added, voicing both their opinions.

The words were all spoken softly, twenty to thirty feet away. Even so, the girl faced them both with wholly black eyes as she rode Gretchen's face, her hands on her breasts. "Don't leave now," she said, lips pulled back in a caricature of a smile. "We're just getting started."

Shadows from the ground slithered up to hold Gretchen's arms and legs in place. A larger one shaped like a phallus at the end penetrated her deeply. Gretchen moaned in pleasure as she licked into the girl harder, hips jerking and thighs quivering. It didn't seem to matter to her when the shadows rose, looking like gargoyle shapes, cutting into Gretchen's skin with their claws. The girl leered at Arthur and Ariadne, her teeth all sharp and pointed as she snapped her hips and urged Gretchen to lick her harder and faster.

Gretchen pulled against the shadows, but she was moaning and panting in pleasure as she writhed on the slap. Her blood flowed freely from the cuts, dripping onto the slab and pooling within the odd symbols.

"We need to go," Ariadne hissed at Arthur, tugging on his sleeve.

Shadows erupted all around them, appearing like menacing ghouls from old horror movies. "No. Stay. Join us," the girl said, voice guttural and echoing. "You like what you see here. Join us."

While Ariadne couldn't help but feel a bit turned on before, her blood ran cold at this. "Oh, hell, no," she snapped.

"We're leaving," Arthur declared firmly. His Glock was in hand, making Ariadne feel a bit slow for not having hers out as well. It was nothing to remedy that, at least.

The girl laughed at them, an odd echo to her voice. "Oh, but you can't leave. Not before the main event. You just got here."

Arthur pulled away from the shadows rising as the girl came, laughing and flicking a lizardlike tongue out among her sharp teeth. Gretchen came as well, hoarsely crying out in pleasure and her whole body shaking with the effort of it. Blood still poured out of the wounds cut into her flesh, an inexplicable flood compared to what seemed like rather shallow wounds. Ariadne didn't stop to see what would happen next, but followed Arthur away from the candlelit slab where the shadows were still holding Gretchen down and fucking her with a relentless intensity.

They ran through the woods, which seemed to stretch impossibly far compared to the stealthy walk toward the clearing. It was almost as if the world had shifted, which should have been impossible. Ariadne wasn't changing the physics of the dream, and she could feel whenever changes were made, even if it was done by someone else. She had felt Arthur create his Glock, like a soft shiver down her spine. This was seamless, as if she had become the dreamer instead of the architect.

Just the thought of being at the mercy of this thing was terrifying.

Her clothes had shifted from the darker colors to the same white blouse and indigo jeans she had worn when she arrived in the dream. Arthur's seemed to have shifted back to their initial black on black on black scheme as well. "What the hell?"

He frowned, not realizing what she meant right away, and then realized she had a white blouse on again. "You're going to be a fucking target."

"I didn't make these woods!"

All around them rose the sound of disembodied laughter and Gretchen's moans. "Oh, to dabble in dreams and different realms, never once realizing the dangers you were in," the girl said, her voice sounding as if four or five people were talking at once.

"Then make something else!" Arthur cried, pointing ahead of them with his Glock. At least her changes to their bodies meant they were more or less phasing through all of the branches, trees and eerie looking twigs and fallen debris on the ground. If she did a stereotypical fall and trip over a log, Ariadne was sure she would scream like a 1970's horror movie victim.

Ariadne reached out to feel the fabric of the dream around them, but it didn't even feel the same as it should have. Something else was covering it, almost like a thick, dense fog of darkness so deep she could barely see where it began. But she _could_ see it, and grabbed Arthur's arm even though he was ten feet ahead of her. Her body snapped into place right beside his, and she tugged him toward the edge of the reality that felt comfortable and familiar. "This way," she cried, nearly screaming in her rising panic.

This was not a dream anymore. It was set to go for three days in this dream state. No one in the real world was out there monitoring them. No one would realize if they were trapped in this hellscape of a dream until it was far too late.

Yanking them through the edge of the hellscape and back into the fabric of the dream reality, Ariadne tripped and nearly fell when she hit the concrete of a parking lot. Arthur was a bit more graceful in his stumble, and caught her arm. They were both fully solid again, and were near one of the buildings that Ariadne recognized but didn't recall the name of at the moment.

"Science building," Arthur announced, looking around them. "Student Union behind it."

"We just need to get the fuck out of here and _wake up,"_ Ariadne hissed, eyes wide with terror. "I don't know what the hell that was back there but I don't want to find out."

"That makes two of us," Arthur said. He hadn't stopped moving, and was all but dragging her along. Even in dreams he walked at a faster pace than she did, and she usually lagged behind unless he deliberately moved slowly so she could keep up.

Looking behind her, Ariadne saw shadows moving and shifting in the woods behind them, eerily dancing in the darkness as if they were flames. "Shit. Keep moving!"

They ran for the Student Union, which was a larger building than the science one and likely had better cover so they could force themselves awake. Ariadne supposed that they could shoot themselves in the head in the parking lot, but if she pulled the trigger at the wrong split second, she would incapacitate herself _and still be asleep_ when the shadows came out of the woods as they were likely about to do. That was horrifying in the extreme.

One of the larger spaces within the Student Union's first floor was the bank, which was opposite the cafeteria and the plate glass windows that overlooked the quad. Running inside it, Ariadne mentally reinforced and barricaded the doors entering the building. She was shaking badly, and her Beretta dropped to the floor with a clatter that made her jump.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked, voice wavering with fear. "I'm not doing this, and she has never had any kind of training. Militarized subconsciousnesses don't do this!"

Arthur gave her a concerned look. "Your demonic possession theory is looking pretty spot on."

"That's ridiculous," Ariadne said, shaking her head. "It's just stories and Halloween horror movies," she insisted. "There is no such thing as demonic possession."

"We're in a dream, Ariadne."

"Get your gun, then, shoot us in the head so we can wake up. I don't think I could aim well right now, I'm shaking so hard."

His expression didn't change. "If this isn't a regular dream, what will happen to us?"

"This _is_ a regular dream! I can feel the difference!"

"But we didn't feel the difference when we were in the woods. I don't want to lose you—"

"We'll be together," Ariadne insisted, grasping his hand in both of hers. "It won't matter what happens, because we'll be together."

Suddenly, she knew where she had heard those familiar words before, and the chill down her spine was even worse.

"Ariadne—"

"Okay, I know, bad choice of words." She grimaced and let go of Arthur, spinning out and away from him to scrub at her face with her hands. "This whole situation is pretty fucked up." She paced with jerky steps, then began rubbing her arms back and forth.

Arthur grasped her arms and spun her around to embrace her in a tight and comforting hug. "I've got you," he said, kissing the top of her head. "I'm here, I've got you."

She was shaking terribly, and grasped his shirt in her hands, pulling up so that she could touch his skin. He felt so warm and real, even down to the blemish that she had felt on his lower back that morning in the shower.

What if none of this was real?

Tears pricked her eyes. "What if we're stuck here?" she whispered brokenly.

"Don't even think that way," he said, swaying with her a bit. He pulled back long enough to look her in the eye. "We're going to do whatever it takes to get out of this dream and back into the real world. We're not getting stuck here, I promise you."

The temperature was dropping, and Ariadne cast a frightened gaze at Arthur. "It's not me."

"Get a coat on, and let's go if this isn't safe, we'll make a way that is."

His adrenaline was keeping him warm, but Ariadne could feel her teeth chatter. A thick, lined wool coat helped a bit, and she smiled up at him as best as she could. "All right. I'll make a door that will lead us out of here and away from the campus."

Arthur grinned at her, clearly pleased and proud of her. "There you go. Let's get started."

The wall behind them opened up, a new set of double doors created. There was the slightest of tremors, a testament to how skilled she was that she could shift the reality of the dream even with a militarized subconscious after them and determined to lock them in.

"That should lead down below the Student Union and tunnel through to where we had parked off campus. Then once we're far enough away that I'm sure there's no leakage from whatever the hell that is, we can shoot ourselves and wake up."

"You think that's her trauma, then?" he asked, frowning.

"A much more likely scenario than demonic possession," Ariadne said firmly. "I don't believe in salt circles and spells and exorcisms and all that. I shouldn't have even said anything to you the other day when we were going over the research. I might've brought this into the dream myself," she added miserably. "So this could be my fault."

Shaking his head, he pulled her back into his embrace. "Impossible. You've been trained and have a tight leash on your own subconscious. This isn't you, it isn't me. Whatever this is, it's not us. It's _not._ So hang on to yourself, and we'll get out of this."

"Okay," she said, heaving a deep breath to recenter herself. Squaring her shoulders, she forced a smile at him. "Okay," she repeated. "Let's do this."

A long and deep kiss for luck, then they turned to the double doors that Ariadne had crafted.

The darkness beyond the doorway exploded.

Tendrils of the darkness burst forth, looking like tentacles on some kind of documentary about octopi. They resembled ooze more than actual tentacles, though, and neither wanted to test what they would do once they caught them. Now that door was just as dangerous as the road outside the Student Union, and they were all but trapped within the bank if Ariadne's shortcuts and back entrances would be corrupted.

One of the tendrils caught Ariadne around the arm, and she unzipped the coat to slither her arms out of it. The thick, warm coat was immediately yanked back into the darkness beyond the double doors, and Ariadne didn't bother to turn around to see what was beyond it. She was running, but the hallway seemed to be impossibly long. It was like a fevered nightmare, an interminable route that lengthened the more she tried to run. "Jesus, I think we're caught up inside paradoxical architecture," Ariadne gasped, stitches in her side.

Arthur's expression was sheer determination. "We find the repeat, we break the loop."

It had felt like her dream, but she hadn't built the paradox here. Which meant this wasn't her carefully constructed dream anymore. Somehow, Gretchen had seized control of it from her without her even realizing it.

Ariadne tried to pay attention to the walls, looking for the seam in the loop. At the same time, the encroaching darkness behind them seemed to be growing closer, but it could have been the way the hall telescoped with the paradox. The bright lights up ahead seemed dimmer, more sinister and threatening. They didn't promise refuge any longer, only the illusion of safety that was farther and farther out of reach.

No, she couldn't think that way. She _couldn't._

Pushing against the sides of the dream, Ariadne tried to force another hallway into being, a T junction that could get them sideways and out of the endless linearity of the space. She shoved hard against the wall, feeling for the seams that had to be there. It hadn't been that big a dream space, just the barest of outlines for Gretchen to fill in, just enough bones to hang the threads on, so to speak. She had planned to build on the fly, so all she had needed was the scaffolding. 

Which she couldn't feel now.

Swallowing down the panic, Ariadne kept pushing at it, not bothering to shift her focus to come up with a weapon for the darkness. After all, was it really going to be a surprise? Light would have to be the answer, and whatever other symbols of purity that existed in various cultures all around the world. Light vs. dark, good vs. evil, the whole of dichotomies distilling down into that simple structure.

She mentally punched against the walls as they passed, trying to find a pattern in it. Arthur had emptied his Glock, and tossed it aside to dream up a Mossberg Shockwave in each hand. It wasn't technically a shotgun by most standards, given its pistol grip, but Ariadne knew that Arthur liked the lessened recoil that it had. The shells within the 12 gauge gun didn't look like the standard manufactured ones, so she supposed that it was something he dreamed up that could possibly take out the tendrils of darkness that seemed intent on catching them and swallowing them whole.

The first blast confirmed the assumption. The shotgun shell burst out of the Mossberg and hit a large patch of darkness that was starting to form into a large tentacle, complete with suction cups the same flat black as the rest of the tentacle. As soon as the shell's payload hit the tentacle, it burst open in a flare of magnesium white light. The tentacle peeled back from the blast as if it had been a splash of acid, and Ariadne wanted to cheer.

Running, she concentrated on finding the weakness in the maze as Arthur shot the flare blasts at the darkness. Being a dream, there was no running out of ammunition, and its properties changed depending on Arthur's needs.

Maybe she had gotten overconfident, but one of the tendrils escaped their notice, creeping along the floor as they focused more at the chest level tentacles.

It wrapped around Ariadne's ankle and yanked viciously. With a startled shriek, Ariadne fell to the floor and was pulled backward. Suddenly the telescoping hallway shortened, and she was being pulled into the double doors that she had created, a gaping, yawning maw that would lead beneath the Student Union and the level of the school. She screamed almost incoherently, thinking _Arthur, Arthur, Arthur!_ all the while, terror nearly choking her and making it impossible to think of how to get out of this predicament.

Arthur was running, eyes intent on hers, one of the Mossbergs fallen to the floor. But he grasped the remaining one in his hands. "I've got you," he promised as she screamed and scrabbled at the floor, trying to keep herself from being pulled backward and into the darkness. "I'm coming, I'll be right there—"

The hallway was telescoping on him again, despite his long legs and fact that he ran on a regular basis to keep up his stamina. Was that a spike of fear in his eyes? Did he think he wasn't going to make it? Was she going to be sucked down into the dark?

"Arthur!" she shrieked.

And then there was nothing but darkness.

***

Arthur panicked, and he _never_ panicked. Ever. He was too prepared, to the point of madness if family members were asked. It had jokingly been referred to as OCD, but it came in handy throughout his life. Right now, however, he was at an utter loss of what to do next. The light bursts weren't doing enough against the sticky darkness beyond the double doors, though it did push it back and away from him. If he had something bigger than shotgun shells...

Eames had always accused him of not having enough imagination. Fine, then. A fucking rocket launcher could drive back the suffocating darkness.

The Mossberg morphed into a rocket launcher, and the same incandescent bright rounds was now in an overlarge rocket form. The inky maw was like a black hole, the utter absence of light and energy, and Ariadne was caught within its grasp.

He pulled the trigger and took off at a run as soon as he saw a gap form.

It was difficult not to let his worry get the better of him, to feel that he wouldn't get there in time, that the darkness would engulf her entirely and she would be trapped in Gretchen's mind. That would leave Ariadne's body an empty shell, much like Mal had seemed sometimes before she had jumped from the hotel window. Arthur would never leave her, even if she had to be hooked up to machines or was just as catatonic as Gretchen.

The rounds of light went off one after another, creating a halo ahead and around him. The darkness closed in behind him, so there was no going back. There was only tunneling down deeper into this route, trying to pick up speed, letting adrenaline do the work. In the real world he would be out of breath, stitches in his sides, lungs on fire and his throat feeling as though it should collapse. In a dream, he didn't have those effects. His strength of will could buoy him up, but he still feared it wouldn't be enough.

 _You know you're better than this. You can't save her,_ he admonished himself, jaw tightening as he tried to pick up more speed. _There was something else that you missed. You aren't good enough. You never were, or you would've seen this coming. You would have known that nothing good ever lasts for you..._

"Ariadne!" he screamed, if only to stop that train of thought. He knew very well how castigating his thoughts could be, and that he already felt as though he deserved them.

A muffled "Arthur!" from his left, and then he was twisting in his run to let the light rockets carve a path. He had to find her. He had to.

The alternative was unthinkable.

***

Ariadne couldn't see. She could feel the press of something all around her, velvety soft and smooth, smelling faintly like burning wood and leaves from a fall fire pit. There was no heat near her, though, nothing to indicate that there was actually a fire anywhere around her. She couldn't feel the pressure of the tentacle around her ankle anymore, thankfully, though she didn't know where she was, either.

Suddenly there was the rasp and flare of a match being struck, fever bright in the encroaching darkness. It seemed to push the darkness back, as if it was a living thing, and she blinked rapidly so that her dark adjusted eyes could see who was holding the match.

Gretchen. She was hugely pregnant, naked, some milk already leaking from her nipples. She held the match and matchbook in one hand, and pressed her other finger to her lips in the universal signal for silence. "It won't be long now," she murmured, patting her belly. Ariadne watched in horrid fascination as the skin moved, a sinuous movement from the child within. She couldn't tell if it was an elbow, knee, hand or foot. "Then I'll be free."

"What happened here, Gretchen?" Ariadne asked.

The space around them was dark, so it was impossible to tell where they were. Gretchen dropped the match, and moved to light another one. Ariadne could make out slate gray walls as if they were in a basement that had been made from poured concrete. No insulation, just concrete behind the naked woman, shadows making her eyes look like completely empty holes. Ariadne tried again, but this version of Gretchen didn't seem to want to answer.

Finally, she smiled, though the sight of it sent chills down Ariadne's spine. Nothing melodramatic like _You'll find out soon_ or _Exactly what happened to me,_ or words to that effect. Ariadne wasn't sure if it would be better if Gretchen had.

"You'll see," she said sweetly. The smile was one of pure bliss, and the baby inside of her belly seemed to make a slow somersault. "It'll be wonderful."

As the match light went out and they were both plunged back into darkness, Ariadne rather doubted that.

***

Arthur raced through the darkness, losing track of where he was in relation to the world above them. He wasn't the architect, after all; his internal compass could only work so well when there were no external cues for him to work with.

It didn't help that there wasn't any screaming. He didn't know if he was going in the right direction, or if he had wandered off and that was why he couldn't find Ariadne. Or if the lack of screaming meant that she was dead or otherwise incapacitated. If she died in the dream, she should wake up. She _should._ He refused to believe that they would be trapped here or in limbo forever. Ariadne would wake up, set the countdown timer and get him the hell out of this nightmare before he was trapped.

If she survived.

He didn't want to think about that, but he couldn't help it. His job was to plan for every possible eventuality, to have contingency plans for contingency plans. At this very moment, that meant he had to think about the possibility that he was never going to see Ariadne again, and the last thing he had seen of her was her frightened face as she screamed his name. Her expression was seared into his mind, and it twisted his gut so badly he almost wanted to bring the rocket launcher to his own head to make it stop.

Was it just his imagination, or was there a whispering in the dark? He didn't want to pay attention to it, but once he noticed the sound over his own breathing, he couldn't seem to ignore it. _Why does everyone ignore their instincts? It's not like sex or love or longing are evil things, you know. As if profanity is really a bad thing..._

It sounded almost like the girl that Gretchen had been fucking in the woods.

Arthur clenched his jaw and kept on shooting the rockets of light into the darkness, still going in the same direction despite the laughter that was starting to build up. The voice was having fun at his expense, he knew. Because he had failed and hadn't kept Ariadne safe in this dream, because that had been his one and only job. He was the point man, he was the one to plan and assess the safety and risks of a job, and he was the one to determine that they hadn't needed anyone else on the job with them. He was the one that thought looking into Gretchen's mind would be low risk, and he was the one that had been wrong, wrong, wrong.

 _Don't you see? This is what's so wrong with humanity. Why deny yourself the anger? Why deny the emotions you rein in so tightly? Do you really have to, Arthur? Is it so wrong to actually_ feel _something? Or show it? Why can't you show Ariadne how much you love her? There's no need to be so restrained._

"This is a trick," he muttered under his breath.

 _I don't have to trick you, Arthur,_ the voice crooned in the dark beyond the reach of his light grenades. _You do the work all on your own. Such delicious misery, simmering beneath the skin you stitched together._ The laughter was vicious now, taunting. _Even that name is a lie. And they say I'm a liar._ Amusement was in that vicious sound. _Oh, no. You lie perfectly well all on your own. I don't even need to push._

"Shut up."

 _Are you going to run from the truth? Adam and Eve did. Every other mortal did. It's all the same, you know. And the ones that don't lie to themselves and break away from conformity are all branded insane and locked away. Isn't that where you belong?_ Arthur? _You know it is, that you lied and lied and lied—_

The taunting in the voice was too much, sounding as if it knew that Arthur had taken on the pseudonym like a second skin, another layer of protection to divorce himself from the past he had run from without looking back. _"Shut the fuck up!"_

The force of the next light grenade was easily tripled the ones before, the magnesium white light blinding even to Arthur's eyes.

_Did I hit a nerve?_

This was all a trick, Arthur tried to tell himself. It was a demon talking to him, a twisted fragment of Gretchen's mind, the way she tried to shield herself from the trauma of what had happened to her in the woods during the three days she had disappeared. The visit with her girlfriend had been warped, because there was no such thing as shadows twisting and warping into binds to keep her down, to fuck her and fill her up to lead to the signs of pregnancy when Gretchen was found, even though there had been no baby and no pregnancy prior to the time she had disappeared.

She was gone for three days. A lot could happen in three days, but not a pregnancy.

The voice twisted around him in the darkness beyond his light bubble. _She's crying, you know. She's screaming for you, and you can't save her. You're so sick, Arthur, to think that you can stop the past from coming back. You can't escape it. You can't escape yourself. You remember it, don't you?_ the taunting voice asked, taking on a crooning note. _All that blood, all that delicious blood, the vengeance in your veins, righteous fury in your eyes._ The giggle was girlish and amused, like a child getting a particularly loved present.

 _I loved you alone,_ the voice said, sounding less like the girl in the woods with Gretchen and more like—

No, Arthur wouldn't think about it. That life was gone and dead.

 _All I loved, I loved you alone,_ the voice crooned. _I would do anything for you._

"Get out of my head," Arthur snarled, teeth grit tight. Another light grenade exploded ahead of him, and he could see spots in his vision after the blast.

The voice laughed. _But my darling, you're in_ my _head._

More light around him, creating less of a bubble and more like a grand cathedral of light, pushing the darkness back. He could see now that he was in a tunnel system, with pipes for water and electricity bolted in place along the ceiling of the tunnel. There were vents and small rectangular basement style windows, mesh inside the panes of glass. Walls were tiled in antiseptic white on the bottom and painted industrial beige at the top, and he could see a sign nailed to the wall with standard Arial script.

**Morgue**

He knew this place, suddenly, and the familiarity of it choked him. "Fuck you," he said to the darkness beyond the tunnel walls, the nearly glowing eyes beyond the panes of glass at the top of the tunnel. _"Fuck you,"_ he said again with feeling.

The voice laughed and he could hear Ariadne screaming in the distance.

Arthur took off at a dead run, leaving the laughter behind him.

As he ran, he wasn't sure what was worse: Ariadne screaming, or the sudden silence that followed it. She had sounded terrified, and it was the most heartrending sound he could imagine ever hearing. It was worse than anything he had ever felt before, and he had hoped to never feel this level of pain when he became Arthur.

Damn the demon for making him remember the past. Damn this demon for destroying the world he had so carefully built and maintained.

Still shooting off grenades from the Mossberg, he finally found a door at the end of the interminable hallway. The light grenades shattered it just as well as it threw off the cloying darkness around him, and he kicked the remnants that blocked his way. The room on the other side of the door wasn't actually a morgue, thank god. He wasn't sure he could have handled a sterile room with metal doors containing bodies on slabs. The thought of Ariadne lying on one made his heart stop.

The room itself was more like an unfinished basement, all poured concrete and the occasional marks left over from the frame. Next to the far wall, he saw a very naked Gretchen sitting upright in a pool of blood, Ariadne's sprawled body lying across her lap. Gretchen looked up with an innocent expression, eyes as empty and blank as the real version he had seen before the dream had started. "She's asleep," she said, her voice rising and falling in an odd sing-song cadence, almost as if she had been born with intellectual disabilities. "I tried to wake her up, but she's still asleep. I think she had a bad dream."

"Gretchen?"

"Yes?"

Arthur stared at the empty expression on her face. "What happened to you?"

"I was walking in the woods. She found me, I think." Gretchen looked down and stroked Ariadne's hair lovingly, not seeming to realize she was smearing blood in it.

"Where did the blood come from?"

The blood itself was tacky and half dried, streaks of some sort of viscous fluid in it. There were smears across Gretchen's legs and belly, but Arthur couldn't tell if it was because she had sat in the pool of blood or if she had actually been wounded.

Startled, Gretchen shook her head. "I don't know. I don't think it's mine."

"I need to get her out of here."

"She's my friend now."

"She doesn't belong here."

Gretchen's empty eyes stared at him. "Then I'll be all alone."

Arthur edged a little closer. "You can come with us, then. Wake up to the real world."

"Oh. Am I dreaming?"

"I think you are," Arthur said in a soothing tone.

Her smile was as empty and vacant as her eyes. "Oh. That's nice."

Arthur noticed that the light was holding in the room, and that the darkness didn't cross the threshold. "What is this place?"

"Home."

He frowned at her, because there was no indication that this was actually the basement to a house. "Where's your clothes?"

She frowned. "I don't remember."

Squatting near Ariadne, he felt her pulse. It was strong and steady, and she seemed to be merely asleep. Maybe she had a nightmare? Though he doubted that she would have fallen asleep in a creepy aspect of a dream she hadn't made.

It was difficult when Gretchen didn't seem capable of following even the simplest of commands, but Arthur finally got her to help him pick Ariadne up to her feet. She was still out of it, but with an arm slung over each person, she was at least upright. It would be easier to fight off the dark if he had a hand free to shoot the Mossberg with.

Only, once they crossed the threshold, the darkness was gone. It wasn't the hallway leading to the morgue at all, but out into a suburban back yard. Gretchen was wearing a T shirt and jeans, still barefoot, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. He recognized it as the style she had been wearing in the missing persons photo that her family had circulated. Genevieve called her name in the distance, and Gretchen's face lit up. "Genny!" she called, waving with her free arm. She sounded rational and cognizant of her surroundings again, and turned to Arthur. "Hey, you've got your friend, right? I need to talk to my sister."

Without waiting for a reply, she took off. Arthur dropped the Mossberg in order to catch Ariadne as she fell, and she seemed to have such a slight, delicate frame in comparison to her usual self. What the hell had she gone through when the shadows took her?

He had to juggle holding Ariadne and getting the Mossberg back, and he feared wrenching her arm out of its socket. He didn't trust the house behind them one bit, and the joyful hug between the twins in the distance didn't make him feel better. It wasn't the real Genevieve, after all, just a projection from Gretchen's troubled mind.

Two or three houses later, the jerky steps seemed to start rousing Ariadne. There didn't seem to be any people around, which made Arthur nervous as hell. Still, he went over to a covered porch to help her sit on the steps. "Ariadne," he murmured, checking her for any damage.

Her eyes opened, and she had a weary, groggy expression. Her pupils were blown so wide that they seemed almost black, and her limbs seemed to flop about a bit. "Concussion," he muttered, shaking his head. "She should've woken you up. I should have thought of that."

"Arthur," she said, voice somewhat slurred. "Gotta wake up now."

"Is it safe to?"

"Dream. Gotta wake up now."

"Not until you're sure this is a natural dream and we won't get sent to limbo."

Ariadne sat up straighter, the floppiness gone. She pushed herself up to her feet, one of the boards from the porch step cracking from the pressure. Or maybe it was her knees, considering the way she shifted around and seemed uncomfortable. "We won't go to limbo," she assured him, her voice sounding far less slurred now. "This isn't that kind of dream. It's only one level, no additional sedation, remember?"

"You didn't handle the medication or the somnacin doses—"

"You're an excellent teacher," she said, lips curling into a smile. It seemed like her usual one, but something felt off at the same time. Arthur couldn't really explain it. She reached into his jacket and pulled out a Glock 19, the smile turning into a smirk.

"Ariadne—"

"I don't want to stay here any longer than I have to. Do you?"

She had a point. "No, I don't. Let's meet Genevieve and be done with it."

"My thought exactly."

With an expert bang, the bullet fired through her temple, blasting out her frontal lobes before it hit him straight in the eye and then out through the back of his head.

***

Genevieve was so grateful to Arthur and Ariadne for meeting with her. She hadn't known about her twin's girlfriend, but wasn't terribly surprised by it, either. "She's bisexual," Genevieve told them with a shrug. "Maybe she thought Mom and Dad would be mad about it, especially after the way she broke things off with her boyfriend. They thought he was great, but he was kind of a loser. Before she went missing, Gretchen told me that he had been screwing around with some other girl on campus and was pretending he still loved her."

"I'm sorry we still don't know exactly what happened during the three days she was missing," Arthur said, shaking his head slightly. "There wasn't any clear indication—"

"She met with her girlfriend," Ariadne cut in, voice firm. "It was their favorite meeting place in the wooded area of campus, and they preferred that to the frat parties. You know the time of year it was, how dark it could be in there, and especially with no moon. They got separated in the woods, and that's how she went missing."

Arthur looked at Ariadne out of the corner of his eye, surprised that she had spoken up about this when they had left the group home not sure what had actually happened in the real world. He really didn't think that the dream contained any kernels of truth.

"I've never met her girlfriend," Genevieve sighed. "I wonder if she even knows where Gretchen is now, so she could visit her if she wanted to."

"Lilith," Ariadne said in that same sure tone of voice. "Her name is Lilith."

"Oh, that sounds lovely. I can look for the name in Gretchen's contact list." She flashed Arthur a wan smile at his start of surprise. "I still check her inbox and connected contacts list, just in case someone messages her something important. I read them to her when I visit."

"It's very kind of you," Ariadne said soothingly, patting Gretchen's hand. "She hears you, and appreciates how much attention you give her. She loves you, too."

The smile on Genevieve's face was heartbreakingly grateful. "Thank you for telling me that. It really means a lot to me."

"So we wanted to tell you what we knew," Arthur said, taking control of the conversation again. His gut curdled a bit, and he couldn't have said why. Something didn't sit right, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

There was no difficulty in getting the payment wired to their account, to taking a circuitous route to their hotel room in the off chance that Genevieve was involved in illicit dream share activity and had marked them for death. Ariadne didn't seem as concerned about it as she usually did, but gave him indulgent smiles. "We're fine. No one knows we're involved in this kind of thing," she said, looping her arm through his as they entered their hotel lobby. "We're just another cute couple on a holiday together, and no one else knows that our line of work even exists."

"I'm still alive because of the caution I take," Arthur reminded her.

"And because you're pragmatic," she pointed out. "It helps when you can take on new identities and escape the horrors of an old life left behind."

Arthur's hand shook as he jabbed at the elevator button. "This is a hard life to live."

Ariadne's smile was brilliant, and she squeezed the arm she was clutching. "But we're together. We have more than just love alone, so we'll survive it, I know we will." Her grip was almost painful, and her smile was just a little too edged for Arthur's peace of mind. She almost didn't seem like herself.

"So you can predict the future now?" he asked in a teasing voice as the elevator doors slid open.

"It's amazing what haruspicy and oneiromancy can tell you," Ariadne purred as they walked into the elevator car.

He turned to her with a frown. "What?"

"Divination with animal entrails and dreams," she said sweetly. She looked up at Arthur, eyes so dark he could barely see the whites in them. "An old, old skill, and so very accurate if you know what you're doing. Lucky for you, I do."

Arthur stared at her, lips parted as a chill rolled down his spine. "You're not Ariadne, are you?" he whispered, voice hoarse as if screaming.

As the elevator doors slid shut, she began to laugh as if he had told a joke.

She didn't sound like Ariadne at all.

The End


End file.
